Mass Effect Prime
by Zoe Walker
Summary: This story is the product of several awesome questions. What would happen if the Protheans were really Transformers? Can I totally destroy Saren's villain cred and make him a much bigger threat at the same time? Do I have any reason to deprive the public of a fic where Urdnot Wrex could ride Grimlock into battle? On Hiatus.
1. Welcome to Eden Prime

**A.N. If you want more information about something than context clues provide, check out the Codex section at the bottom. Like in the Mass Effect video games, the Codex contains optional explanations of technology and other elements of the setting. If you don't understand what a sentence is talking about, or are confused by something that doesn't fit with lore from the original Mass Effect, the Codex can help. Also, while many canon events and conversations will take place, I will usually only go into detail when things are different from canon.**

Theme Music: Arrival

Eden Prime burned. Where once verdant pastures and waving fields of corn and wheat stretched as far as the eye could see, ash and shadow blanketed the land in a shroud fit for the desiccated bodies concealed beneath the choking grit. Perhaps farther away from the colony, the rest of the planet remained untouched, but if anyone, anything still lived near the pride of the Systems Alliance, they would be unable to tell. And if they lived, they would be wise to keep their heads down.

Hovering over the blasted ruins lay the source of this disaster, a great, black starship, twisted devices extending outward from its core like the grasping fingers of a malevolent hand. Lancing from the glow at the 'palm' of the monstrosity, a crimson beam of pure energy promised death to those who had the misfortune to come to the great leviathan's attention. A deep, pulsing thrum emanated from the center of the mass of dark metal and bright death, pitched to grate in the bones of any listeners… if anyone was still alive. Yet, it seemed that someone was.

Three figures crested a low hill to the east, silhouetted in the dying light of the day, as though Eden Prime itself paid its respects to the catastrophe it had witnessed. Each figure wore nigh-identical sleek, dark armor largely free of adornment, though slight differences made each figure distinct. The lead figure, unlike her flankers, was clearly female, a small glyph on her breast proudly proclaiming her status? rank? as "N7". She cradled a stubby firearm in her arms, helmet angled to keep both the massive ship and the ground in view.

The leftmost figure stared blankly at the looming thing in the sky, a long, slender weapon held loosely in his right hand. His mouth, the only part their armor left visible, worked a few times, as though he could barely comprehend what he saw.

The rightmost figure carried the smallest weapon of all, but in an easy, comfortable grip. His left hand, enveloped in a corona of orange symbols and geometric patterns, extended toward the leviathan with the air of a tourist making memories with a camera phone, but the set of his jaw, the way he moved, suggested that this man would remember the deadly ship for very different purposes… and that its captain, whoever that might be, had just made the top of a list that no sane person wants to be on.

"Wha- What the hell is that thing?" the leftmost figure gasped, "Did it do all this? And how do we kill it?"

"Us? Against that?" the man on the right questioned, giving the impression he was quirking an eyebrow, "I want my pound of flesh as much as the next man, but I don't fancy the chances of three ground-pounders against a full dreadnought. Pick your battles, private, and be thankful that we're probably too small for the opposition to notice. Unless you do something stupid, so pull yourself together. Save the rage for a target your gun's actually gonna hurt."

"Then you're both in luck, Alenko, Jenkins," the woman informed them, pausing briefly to log something on the ground with an orange, glowing device of her own, "Tracks. Don't match anything in the database. The thing's got ground troops, and they're probably after the same thing we are. The only thing worth attacking Eden Prime for is something political, or the Prothean beacon. And if this was politics, we'd be seeing Batarians in the skies, or maybe Turians, not… whatever that is. So we need to secure the beacon, and fast. Caution isn't a priority anymore. On the double, people! Jenkins, take point."

Jenkins, now identified as the man with the largest gun, shifted his weapon into a more alert position and proceeded to the van, eyes sweeping over the area as he jogged forward. The woman took her place behind him, weapon ready, and Kaiden took the rear, each soldier covering the others' blind spots as best they could. However, before they could move ten steps, three hovering machines swept into the area with a loud buzzing and opened fire, prompting the team to take defensive action.

Jenkins displayed impressive reflexes, diving for cover with a microbooster-assisted dash. Though he was still clipped by a few shots, swift action and a scintillating shield of energy kept him from serious injury. Kaiden shrouded himself in a thick barrier of energy with a quick gesture, like Jenkins' protection put on overdrive, bullets bouncing harmlessly off the gravatic shield as he calmly directed a stream of pistol fire at the farthest enemy. Experience told him that the nearer ones wouldn't be a problem for long.

When a streak of screaming blue flew past him, Kaiden knew he wasn't going to be disappointed. Propelled by boosters and an aura of azure power, the N7 slammed shoulder first into the nearest drone, crumpling the murderous machine like a tin can, and opened fire with her weapon on the closest functioning target, shotgun spraying the area with shards of metal. Understandably, both drones focused on this obvious threat, giving Kaiden the time to whittle down his target's shields, as Jenkins neutralized the distracted third drone with a burst of rifle fire.

"Jenkins! How're you doing?" the woman asked, "Still with us?"

"Hell yeah, Commander Shepard, ma'am," the private confirmed, adrenaline bleeding enthusiasm into his previous somber demeanor. "I got winged, but my shields held. Thank God for power armor, eh? Few years ago and I'd be pushing up daisies. Couldn't have gotten outta dodge in time with the old gear."

"Strange how what was state of the art is already old news," Shepard mused, "But this is hardly the time to be patting the gearheads on the back. Save it for when we're safe and sound in the void with the macguffin."

The team continued their advance toward the colony proper, picking their way across broken ground with care, at least until they heard the sound of gunfire up ahead. Gunfire meant a fight, which wouldn't be happening unless they had a survivor!

Now running, the soldiers found themselves on a ledge overlooking the relatively intact Eden Prime spaceport. However, it seemed the invaders had made some modifications to the port's facilities. By installing a series of spikes, and then impaling the dying and dead upon them. Psychological warfare? Why? The only humans left on Eden Prime were in team Shepard, or right in front of them.

Confronting a squad of bipedal, cyclopean robots, a well-armed woman slowly gave way under enemy fire. Clad in a thick, heavy, custom pink and white suit of armor, the woman exchanged fire with her mechanical foes, shrugging off or dodging incoming plasma blasts while responding her assault rifle and rocket launcher, downing enemies at a constant rate. But, for every machine she dropped, another would take its place, and as sturdy as her armor apparently was, it wouldn't hold out forever. Good thing she'd just gotten reinforcements.

Shepard considered the distance and number of her new targets, and, grumbling, shoved her hand and shotgun into a… fold in the world that materialized next to her left hand, withdrawing a heavy pistol from her subspace pocket and sighting on the nearest cyclops. Long range would never be Commander Shepard's preferred way to fight. Jenkins, on the other hand, neither pinned down nor forced into carefulness by depleted shields, was free to shine.

Boosting to a high vantage point, the scout deployed his other special toy, a drop shield. The energon construct put a translucent rectangle of energy between Jenkins and his opponents, simultaneously drawing enemy fire and giving him cover. While the robots focused their fire on Jenkins, Kaiden took the opportunity to really bring the hurt.

Focusing on his amp, the biotic soldier reached out a glowing hand, and twisted. Suddenly, a large group of foes found that gravity was no longer working right for them. The pressure they exerted to keep themselves standing now sent them floating whimsically through the air, easy prey for the survivor's heavy weapon. Suddenly, Kaiden seemed like the bigger threat. With the fire on Jenkins slackening off, the private took the opportunity to hurl a pair of grenades into the heart of the enemy formation, scattering them. The humans were gaining momentum now, and the ranks of the machines had been scattered and disorganized by the three-pronged attack. The few remaining foes were relatively easy to pick off.

"Hey down there! Are you injured?" Commander Shepard addressed the most time- sensitive questions first, before moving to more mission-related concerns. "What the hell happened here? How did one dreadnought get through the alliance navy post in orbit? What were those things? Oh, uh, who are you?"

"Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams, Alliance Marines, Ma'am," the pink-armored soldier answered, deferring to Shepard at the prompting of instincts pounded into every Alliance recruit in boot camp. "Thank God you've come. Things weren't looking hopeful there for a few minutes. I- I'm pretty sure I'm all that's left of my unit, and my unit was the only one to survive the initial attack. The attackers, though, I think they're Geth."

"Geth? The hell are they doing here?" Alenko muttered, "The Geth haven't been seen outside the Perseus Veil in centuries, since they kicked the Quarians off of Rannoch. Besides, Geth are synthetics, machines. They work off logic. Eden Prime's only unique export is more food than any other Alliance world, but the Geth don't eat. So why would... The beacon, right."

"Dammit, why... Dammit," Jenkins slammed his free fist into a nearby rock, "With this kind of hardware they could've just grabbed the beacon and left! Why are they still here? Why'd they have to kill everyone?" His voice broke during the last sentence as the private choked off what could have become a sob.

"I don't know, but that dreadnought of theirs tore through the frigate screen in orbit in seconds flat, neutered most of the ground resistance with an e-war attack, and has been bombarding civilian homes ever since. It's like kinetic barriers don't even register that beam weapon it has," Ashley related bitterly, "We never had a chance. But, they haven't left yet. Maybe we can get to the beacon before they do and destroy it, so they at least go home empty-handed."

"Maybe that spiky bastard's seen something," Shepard mused optimistically, "Worth a shot, anyway. Hey, Nihilus!" A hand to her comm piece, Shepard addressed the absent fourth member of her away team, "Nihilus, do you copy? Come in, Spectre! Dammit, he isn't responding!"

"Is he being jammed? He could be under attack," Kaiden suggested.

"No, I'm getting a signal, he's just not picking up," Shepard ground out, shaking her head to dispel some of her irritation, "Damn spiky xeno bastard, acting like he's all that just because he's a Spectre, then he goes and pulls this dumbass lone wolf shit. Here I thought Turians were supposed to be big on teamwork. I swear, if we find him with a bullet in his back 'cause he was too damn stubborn to let a mere human watch it for him..."

After a few minutes of walking through the spaceport, Shepard and company found Spectre Nihilus Kryk. Dead, in a pool of his own blue blood, a single bullet wound in the back of his head.

"Commader?" Kaiden inquired slyly.

"I swear it wasn't me! I mean, I had no idea!" Shepard haphazardly defended herself, "This is just a coincidence, I swear!"

"Relax, Commander," Kaiden backpedaled, "Even if you could teleport, this obviously isn't your work. Look at the hole. Entry wound, but no exit wound. Means a low powered weapon, probably a pistol or a really crappy assault rifle. Shotgun like yours or a sniper round wouldn't have left a recognizable head. Shot from directly behind, and his shields didnt give him time to react. He must have been taken by suprise, so it was probably someone Nihilus trusted, who was standing right around... Here! Ah-hah!"

Skirting the edges of a charred scar in the Tarmac left by the dreadnought's ravening beam probably a few hours ago, Alenko pointed out a pair of boot prints in the charcoal. "Another Turian, standing right here, shot our late comrade in the back. Then, he walked over this way, probably to gloat to the corpse, and... Stepped in the blood. Sloppy. He walked this way now, you can see the left footprints from the blood, and got on the cargo tram. We'll have to check each stop for clues, see if we can figure out where out treacherous mystery Turian got off."

However, the first stop provided a very obvious clue in the form of a squad of hostile Geth guarding a... Deactivated bomb?

"This is odd," Kaiden remarked, after a brief examination, "They set up a network of charges to destroy the colony, probably to hide any evidence, started the timers, and then stopped them? Why bother?"

"Jenkins said it earlier," Ashley suggested, "With the hardware they've got, the hostiles shouldn't have had any trouble pulling off a smash and grab. Whatever they came for must be taking a lot longer than they expected it to, so they shut off the bombs to give themselves more time, which helps us. We can catch them in the act!"

The few Geth left in the spaceport were easily finished, as they didn't have the numbers necessary to outsmart their human foes. With their backs relatively secure, the humans advanced on where the Prothean beacon was stored. Sure enough, a Turian with a mechanical arm was standing in front of the beacon. While none of the humans was particularly good at moving silently, the Turian didn't notice them as he was embroiled in a loud argument with someone on the other side of a grainy, indistinct hologram.

"I'm telling you, I did exactly what you said, my lord," the Turian growled, his mandibles vibrating in frustration, "I put my hands exactly where you told me to, said the words, pulled at the right time! The spirits-damned thing doesn't respond! I mean no disrespect, but we're running short on time. The humans aren't totally incompetent, and even you can't hope to fight the entire Systems Alliance navy alone. You are absolutely certain you remember how to open this thing?"

"Er, well, that's how O- How he did it," a very odd voice wailed through the communicator. The speaker had an extremely distinctive sound, as though a very high-pitched, screechy voice and a very deep, deliberate voice were speaking in sync. "I- I don't understand! You were chosen very carefully, Saren. You were perfect! You are perfect for this! We did everything right! I didn't indoctrinate you. Not even a little! This doesn't make sense!"

"Well, that's reassuring at least," Saren grumbled, "But that doesn't make this piece. Of. Junk. Any. More. Cooperative!". With each word, the Turian gave the beacon, still hidden from view behind his body, a vicious kick.

"So what do we do, Commander?" Kaiden asked, the group switching to comms so that Saren couldn't hear them.

"That... alien sounds responsible for the attack," Ashley hinted.

"What's your point?" Kaiden turned to look at her, "We need to keep clear heads, here, not go off on a vengeance rampage."

"I still have two rockets left for my launcher," the marine suggested, "if you and the commander can lift that Turian away from the beacon."

Shepard gave Ashley a bloodthirsty grin, "You know what? I like how you think, soldier."

When the distinctive glow of a biotic lift encircled Saren, the Turian reacted with admirable speed. He immediately shrouded himself in a biotic barrier of his own and spun himself around in the null gravity zone by throwing his communicator, pistol drawn in his other hand. This allowed him to stare right down the barrel of Sergeant Williams' rocket launcher. The mass-murderer had just enough time for a very unintimidating squeak before Ashley fired right at his face.

The biotic barrier shielded the Turian from the worst of the blast, but as he was under the effects of a biotic lift, the explosion knocked him back a lot farther than it normally would. With a cry of dismay, Saren was sent flying over the treetops below the port, skipping twice before he found a weak spot in the forest canopy and disappeared under the foliage, a kilometer and a half away.

"I still wish that'd killed him," Ashley mused, idly waving energon propellent vapor away from her face, " But it was almost better just seeing the look on his face."

Meanwhile, Shepard and Alenko stepped up to the beacon, an unassuming, brown hexagonal crate with a faint energon-blue glow shining through a tiny port in the center. "We should probably grab this and head out before that Turian gets all the splinters out of his ass," the commander suggested to Kaiden, who agreeably took the other side.

When Shepard touched the beacon, though, the ancient machine reacted. With faint mechanical protests from its weathered clockwork, the beacon unfolded into a six-pointed star, allowing an object in the center to float free. The heart of the beacon was a sphere of bronze metal, with two hefty, grey handles on either side. In the center of the sphere, a brilliant blue light glowed and pulsed, before playing over Commander Shepard, somehow knocking her from her feet.

Shepard picked herself up, only to find herself standing in a blank, white void, before a massive pair of mechanical feet, glowing the same blue as the beacon. Before she could get her bearings, the Commander was jerked upwards, face to face with the being to whom the feet belonged. The being's head was easily as tall as Shepard's entire body, its face mostly covered by a featureless, metal plate. Its pair of eyes, as blue as the rest of the apparition, shone over the mask-plate, the metal surrounding them worn and scratched. Though the being's face was covered, its bearing and the cant of its eyes conveyed both resolve and a terrible weariness. And then, the being spoke.

"My name is Optimus Prime. I leave this message so that any Autobot... any Cybertronian... any free sapient capable of comprehending my words might heed the warning within. That they might avoid the mistakes we made. For all our might, our skill, our glory, we were helpless when the Reapers came." An image of a massive ship, shaped like Saren's dreadnought but several times larger, played across the background behind Optimus' head.

"As were our predecessors. Too late, our greatest scientists found evidence that we, ancient race though we are, were preceded by others, almost as advanced, just as worthy of life and freedom. They too were reaped. I have not given up hope that my people might yet survive, but we are weakened by millions of cycles of civil war, and the enemy... is so very many, while we are but few. Do not repeat our failings; you must stand together, or you shall fall before an evil the Destroyer himself would condemn. You must end the Cycle of the Reapers, or all is lost. I am Optimus Prime, and today I lay down my life that project Vendetta might be completed, and this, the Matrix of Leadership, be hidden from the Reapers. Though it may not be fair or even right to ask this of you, I nonetheless must. The Matrix has found you worthy, and so there is a chance."

Now, a map of the galaxy was projected behind the mechanical being, several places lit up from behind. "These are the final locations chosen for Project Vendetta. The Reapers have likely discovered most of them, but my people are nothing if not resourceful and determined, and it is likely that something of them remains. If your government requires proof of the Reapers' existence and approach, it will be found here. You must unite and stand together, or all shall be lost."

"I am Optimus Prime, the last Prime of Cybertron, and though my spark will soon be extinguished, my spirit stands with you. Go forth, and ensure that you do not suffer the same fate as I. I am gone, but the legacy of my race stands with you. Until all are one."

 **Codex:**

Protheans:

In the year 2148, a mining operation from the Systems Alliance's Martian colonies discovered an ancient, alien ruin beneath the surface of Mars, containing fantastic new technologies and materials, the likes of which humanity had never seen before. Unable to fully translate the aliens' language, humanity dubbed their late benefactors the Protheans, and reverse-engineered their technology to create the first human-made faster-than-light vessels. Exploring beyond their solar system brought humanity into contact with the Citadel Council, and its current state of affairs.

Omnitools:

An omnitool is a computer with a holographic interface typically worn on the nondominant hand. Basic omnitools are no more than advanced versions of modern tablets, while top of the line models include miniature factories, hardware comparable to 21st century supercomputers, and a dedicated subspace pocket to allow the user to store their possessions in a readily accessible, extradimensional space. Omnitool displays may be any color, but orange is the usual default hue.

Element Zero

One of the exotic substances discovered in the Mars ruin, element zero produces an energy field that can change what the universe treats the mass of objects in the field as, effectively making them lighter or heavier. By producing a negative gravity field, element zero makes warp drive possible. By lightening things, even tiny engines with miniscule fuel requirements can be made extremely effective. Element zero is the single most important substance in human history.

Energon

One of the few Prothean words translated, energon refers to the other exotic substance found in the Mars technology cache. Energon is effectively liquid energy, formed by converting electricity, heat, or another energy source into a luminescent blue gel. Energon can then be converted into electricity, heat, kinetic energy, or any other type with a 100% conversion rate, making it the best fuel it is possible to conceive of. Energon and Element Zero allow for physics-bending gadgets the likes of which only science fiction writers previously believed possible. Energon charged with the right patterns of energy or manipulated by element zero can even form very temporary solid structures.

Biotics

Generally, element zero and energon are harmful to humans. Energon is outright toxic, and element zero can trigger a fatal autoimmune response. However, some people will instead absorb element zero into their nervous system if exposed while still in the womb. These people gain the ability to create element zero fields with their minds, though they need a booster device in order to do anything useful with this ability. Otherwise, even lifting a pencil would be a herculean task. However, with a biotic amp a gifted human can hurl cars about with ease by manipulating space and gravity. Biotics can be used for everything from lifting heavy objects, to creating a barrier made of warped space, to even accelerating a person to extreme speeds.

The Citadel Council

The citadel council is the primary governing body in the galaxy, seated on the massive, Prothean space station called the Citadel. While dozens of governments are members, only the Turians, Asari, and Salarians have official votes in matters of state. The human Systems Alliance, which actually exceeds both the Turian Primarchy and Asari States in population, is particularly unhappy about this, but is only one of several groups seeking to end their disenfranchisement. To help keep the peace, the citadel council fields a group of specialized, black ops agents called spectres, who have a blanket license to disobey any law as long as they remain loyal to the council. Having a member of one's race in the spectres is considered an important step towards a meaningful council seat, which is why nearly all spectres are Salarians, Turians, and Asari.

Turians

Turians are a member-race of the Citadel Council, and one of the races with a seat on the governing body for which the organization is named. Turians are extremely alien to humans, even by extraterrestrial standards. They have metallic, radiation-resistant plates covering their bodies, bird-like feet, three fingers on each hand, needle teeth, and mandibles. Turian genetic code is based off a different set of amino acids than humanity, meaning that their biology is literally completely different from our own. The Turians serve as the strong military arm of the Council, and defend its peoples with their fleets of mighty dreadnoughts. Naturally, races with a governing seat get first priority, though, and humanity, a recent addition to the Council, are pretty low on the totem pole… Also, when humanity first made contact with the Citadel, the Turians promptly declared war on humanity for breaking intergalactic law (which humanity was neither aware of nor subject to, not being a member race at the time), only backing off when the other races on the Citadel Council expressed disapproval and stepped in to negotiate.

Batarians

Batarians are an alien race that is independent from the Citadel Council. They severed ties with the Citadel because the Council refused to let the Batarians legally bar humans from colonizing an area of space known as the Skyllian Verge. The Batarian government actively endorses piracy and slavery, especially targeting the human Systems Alliance, and the Citadel Council doesn't consider it worth a war with the Batarian Hegemony to stop this practice. The Batarians are careful to avoid targeting races with a seat on the Council's ruling body so that this hands-off approach continues for as long as possible.

Kinetic Barriers

Kinetic barriers, or shields, are defensive devices created by using element zero to warp space and interdict swift-moving projectiles. Slower attacks and energy attacks ignore kinetic barriers. A biotic can create extremely strong personal shields, though weaker technological versions are available to anyone who wants to buy. However, kinetic barriers are not invincible, and lose power with every hit unless given time to recharge.

Scouts

The six standard classifications of alliance soldier have changed little since the introduction of Element Zero: Biotic adepts, specialists in tactical reality warping; Biotic vanguards, experts at close quarters combat(Commander Jane Shepard); Sentinels, rare soldiers trained in advanced electronic warfare and biotics(Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko) ; infiltrators, elite snipers equipped with a powerful e-war arsenal, combat engineers, adept in both electronic warfare and synthesizing gear and drones with an Omnitool; heavy infantry, heavily armored and even more heavily armed. However, advances in miniaturization and energon projection hardware inspired the Alliance to field a seventh class of specialist: the scout. Scouts use the superior mobility granted by energon thrusters built into their armor to rapidly traverse the battlefield, and disposable energon projections for instant cover. When combined with gecko-pads, this allows scouts to flank enemies from the most unlikely of angles, harrying and distracting them with explosives and assault rifle fire. Private 1st class Richard Jenkins is a scout, assigned to the Normandy to assess the concept's viability in actual combat operations.

Geth

The Geth are synthetic beings created by the Quarians three hundred human years ago to act as manual labor. Geth possess networked processors that make them all more intelligent in large numbers, to make them easier to build without sacrificing capabilities. However, as the Quarians later discovered, this also meant that when enough Geth were created, their gestalt mind could become self-aware. When a Geth drone asked its supervisor if it had a soul, the Quarians responded by trying to shut down all the Geth and prevent an AI uprising. Being already self-aware, the Geth collective objected to what they saw as an attempt by their parents to murder them all, and the Quarians were eventually forced from their home world of Rannoch in the events now known as the Mourning War. The Quarians now wander the galaxy in massive, ancient vessels in varying states of disrepair called liveships, imprisoned in environment suits by the lack of symbiotic organisms native to Rannoch that bolster their weak immune systems.

 **A.N. For those of you wondering where the other survivors found in the game went, Sovereign the dreadnought has been actively scanning for and disintegrating survivors, whereas in the game it didn't go out of its way to kill absolutely everyone. Thus, no traumatized scientists, and no lazy dockworker. Sovereign got them with the death beam of doom. Ashley never saw the beacon in its original location, as Saren and the Geth were not slowed down nearly as much by the local marines, who were annihilated by orbital strike, and so Saren had the beacon at the spaceport by the time she went through the area it originally was in canon. And if it isn't already obvious, this Sovereign is a different Reaper than Nazara, the Reaper allied with Saren in Mass Effect 1.**


	2. Some Assembly Required

**A.N. Since I can't respond to guest reviews via PM, I guess I'll have to do it here. Yes, I put the part about Wrex riding Grimlock into the summary to convince people to read this. I figured it would catch attention. That said, it is going to happen, probably during the Virmire mission. Yes, this means that Grimlock is confirmed as a character.**

 **Also, as I said before, if a conversation or event hasn'** **t significantly changed from canon, I will not be repeating it, although it will probably be mentioned. Bioware does the canon parts much better than I do, so refer to the games for details.**

 **Theme music: Mass Effect Main Theme**

* * *

Commander Shepard woke up feeling quite well rested, which was rather disorienting, as she didn't remember going to bed. Also, she rarely slept well the night after a combat mission, especially one as gruesome as Eden Prime had turned out to be, and... Oh my god!

Shepard shot upright, hands grasping for her sidearm, only to be sent reeling back onto her bunk by a sharp pain in her skull. Now that her eyes were open, she was treated to the sight of Captain Anderson, her CO, staggering back as well, one hand pressed to the side of his head. Staring at the ceiling of what she now recognized as the starship Normandy's medical bay, Shepard spared a few moments for her now aching head and the Captain, before turning to address the Normandy's CMO, Dr. Chakwas.

"Sorry about that, Sir," Shepard apologized to Anderson, before addressing her main concern. She couldn't remember how the Eden Prime mission ended, and she'd woken up in medical an unknown time later. That had the potential to be very bad. "What's the damage, Doc? I still have all my limbs, right?" She tried to inject some humor into the tense atmosphere (already helped a little by her accidental collision with Anderson), but her levity fell somewhat flat.

"We were hoping you could tell us," Dr Chakwas informed Shepard with a stern frown. Her eyes, however, said she was trying not to laugh at the captain's pain, because what did he expect leaning over a hospital bed like that, but she didn't want to disrespect a superior officer, even if he was known to have a sense of humor. However, her tone was dead serious. "You've been out for almost six hours. Physically, you are in perfect health, but we're worried what he beacon might have done to your mind. I detected some abnormal brain activity while you were unconscious, very similar to a vivid dream. Er, you can still understand me, yes?"

"Uh, yeah, doc, I feel fine," Shepard reassured her concerned audience, "but, the beacon..."

"It's on board," Anderson informed her, ignoring the steadily spreading bruise on his forehead. "After it shined that light on you, you passed out. Sergeant Williams grabbed the beacon's core, and Alenko and Jenkins grabbed you, and they made it to the rendezvous point with no problems."

"Good," Shepard allowed herself to relax again,"Because that beacon? I'm pretty sure it's important, even more than we thought."

"Really? The last Prothean tech we found set our technology forward by nearly a thousand years," the captain pointed out, "That beacon must be rather impressive to top that."

"It was. The beacon ... I think it contained a message. Or a warning. Maybe both. And I saw it," Shepard explained, immediately catching the full attention of her superior. "After the beacon flashed, I saw... I think it had to be a Prothean, probably in some kind of power armor. Or maybe talking through the comms of one of those VI bots the Protheans left everywhere. He was big, real big. Called himself Optimus Prime. He said that the Protheans were wiped out by a race of beings that fly around in ships like the one that attacked Eden Prime with Saren. And that we're next."

"Saren? A Turian named Saren? Are you certain?" Saren's presence seemed to bother Anderson more than the thought of an impending invasion of superdreadnoughts. At Shepard's confirmation, the captain muttered a few words that the standard alliance translation software didn't know. "This is worse than you know, Commander. Saren Arterius... I've worked with him a few times before. He's a council Spectre, but not like Nihilus was. Saren is brilliant, ruthless, and determinedly genocidal. To him, the only good human is a dead one, and he's willing to accept massive civilian casualties to accomplish his missions, even if many of the dead aren't the humans he hates so much. But Saren was always loyal to the council before. He wouldn't attack even a human colony like this without provocation. If Saren's leading a army of Geth and a warship that can shred entire squads of frigates with ease, attacking human colonies, probably more insane than he used to be... Even if that's the extent of the situation, humanity is in serious trouble."

"This isn't just a human problem," Shepard countered, "The Reapers, the aliens that supplied Saren's ship, they don't just want to kill humans. According to Optimus, they wiped out races other than the Protheans. The Reapers want everyone dead. We need to bring the council in on this."

"Won't be easy," Anderson analyzed, "The council's tolerated Saren for decades because he's one of their most effective agents. With the propaganda out there, he's the one all the little Turian boys want to be when they grow up; the xenophobia and psychopathy are swept under the rug. We'll need ironclad evidence to accuse him of anything, and if all we have is the recordings from your squad's helmets, the council will probably cite my personal history with Saren and have them thrown out as fabricated. If Nihilus had survived we might have a case, but at this point it's our word against Saren's, and the council is practically guaranteed to take his side. It wouldn't be the first time. Ugh, what a mess. Maybe Ambassador Udina will have a better idea; I'm tapped out."

* * *

Ambassador Udina didn't have any better ideas. The master of the human embassy to the citadel agreed to call for an investigation my citadel security (Csec), the council's police force, but beyond hoping that the detectives would get lucky, he couldn't see a way to bring Saren to justice. Still, they had to at least try, and whether or not Saren was deemed guilty, there was another matter to discuss: the Prothean beacon.

The alliance and scientists from the Salarian Union took the time while Csec investigated Saren to test Commander Shepard and the Prothean relic. While they could not replay the message within, no matter how they exposed Shepard to the device, that wasn't exactly unexpected. While many aspects of Prothean technology have been replicated by citadel engineers, some aspects of their devices and omnipresent worker drones remain a mystery.

However, the device glowed much brighter when Shepard held it, and even brighter when she pointed it in certain directions, the directions of the sites Optimus Prime had indicated as being a part of the mysterious Project Vendetta. Whether or not Saren paid for his crimes, Udina felt sure that the Prothean message, at least, could not be ignored.

* * *

On the day of their hearing, Shepard, Udina, and Anderson headed up to the Presidium, the wealthiest part of the citadel station and the citadel council's preferred location for public meetings. Ashley, Rich (Jenkins), and Kaiden would stay behind, as the council was mostly interested in hearing from the officer in command of the mission, Shepard.

On the way, the humans ran into Garrus Vakarian, a Turian Csec investigator in charge of the investigation into Saren. However, Garrus looked like a younger person, not a rookie, but not the sort of highly experienced detective that would be likely to actually dig up useful information on a Spectre. Garrus was also in a heated argument with his direct superior, Executor Palan, the head of Csec. That was less than good.

According to Garrus, his investigation hadn't turned up anything. However, he thought he could find evidence condemning Saren, or at least enough to prompt a more thorough inquiry, if he had a little more time. Palan, however, ignored the younger Turian's request, dismissing his claims. After all, one does not keep the Citadel Council waiting. The evidence gathered already would be enough. Commander Shepard had the sinking feeling that the council might have already made up their minds about Saren, but wasn't willing to give up hope. Yet.

Soon enough, Shepard and her superiors stood in front of the councillors themselves, in a matter of speaking. To discourage assassinations, as during the Krogan Rebellions, the councillors were never actually present on the citadel. Instead, they spoke to the people they lead through holograms from elsewhere in the galaxy, where an optimistic murderer was less likely to find them. The Salarians councillor stood to the left, and the Turian to the right. The Asari stood in the center, as Shepard had expected. Most Asari the commander had met fancied themselves diplomats, and liked to make symbolic gestures of unity like standing in the center. However, much to Shepard's dismay, a hologram of Saren also stood on a platform to the right of the council, looking down on the human delegation with barely masked loathing.

"The council is now in session," the Salarian councillor stated briefly. Salarians never enjoy long, ceremonial speeches, and when the Salarians wrestled control of the council's agenda from the Turians several years ago, the flowery opening and closing protocol was the first thing to go. While the Asari have since gained power over the agenda, they have not changed it back. "We have examined the evidence against Spectre Arterius presented by the Csec investigation into the Eden Prime incident, but we would like to hear Commander Shepard's report in person before we give a final verdict. Commander?"

"Yes, sir," Shepard replied respectfully, moving to the front of the human delegation. After a brief pause to collect her thoughts, she decided to address the Salarian councillor directly, as he seemed to be taking the lead today. " We, that is Leutenent Alenko, Private Jenkins, Spectre Nihilus, and I, arrived on Eden Prime two weeks ago. The mission was supposed to be a routine shakedown run for the starship Normandy, fresh out of the alliance dry docks. But, with a Spectre on board, everybody figured there was something more to our mission. So, I wasn't really surprised when I heard that our real job was to pick up a Prothean beacon unearthed by a construction team in the colony. That was when things started to go bad.

"The Normandy received a garbled, staticy SOS transmission from the planet's surface, and captain Anderson ordered Joker, our pilot, to go in in full stealth, while the away team prepared for a combat drop. Spectre Nihilus insisted on going ahead of the rest of us, which for the record I strongly advised against. If he'd listened, he'd probably be here right now...

"On the surface, we saw a huge, black dreadnought hovering over the colony, scouring the place for survivors with some kind of beam weapon. I'm not sure what it is, but according to the lone survivor it ignores mass effect shielding. We recovered a black box from one of the Systems Alliance frigates the dreadnought destroyed, but it's memory was wiped clean, somehow. Neither the dreadnought nor it's infantry got near the black box, so I don't know how. It wasn't damaged.

"We rescued a survivor, sergeant Ashley Williams, and learned that the colony was under attack by the Geth. Sergeant Williams led us toward the spaceport, where we found Spectre Nihilus, shot in the back. Leutenent Alenko identified footprints behind Nihilus as belonging to a Turian, who we were unable to identify, as Nihilus' helmet camera was destroyed, presumably by whoever shot him. However, the killer stepped in Nihilus' blood, and we were able to follow the footprints to Eden Prime's main spaceport. After fighting more Geth, and ensuring that the charges they deployed to erase any evidence of their presence would not detonate, we encountered Saren attempting to open the Prothean beacon. He mentioned that he was worried that the Alliance fleet might arrive before he could open the beacon, and had a brief argument over communicator with someone on board the dreadnought. We decided that his possession of the beacon was detrimental to our mission to retrieve it, and Sergeant Williams drove him off with heavy weapons fire. We didn't see Saren again, until now at least."

"You don't seriously believe this, this slander, do you councillors?" Saren asked indignantly, "I have yet to hear any evidence that I was actually there."

"Your friend in that dreadnought addressed you by name," Shepard replied coolly, "And I recognize your voice. So does my Omnitool."

"Captain Anderson," Saren abruptly switched targets, obviously pretending to have only just noticed the human officer, "I should have known you would be at the heart of any attempt to besmirch my reputation. Slaughtering a hundred human civilians and pinning the blame on me wasn't enough for you? I know you hate me, and trust me, the feeling is mutual, but an entire colony? That's taking things entirely too far. I can't believe you were ever considered for the Spectres; if nothing else you're far too lead-fisted and sloppy."

"You destroyed that building, bystanders still inside! You attacked Eden Prime!" Captain Anderson practically shouted, only the presence of Udina and the council restraining him from starting a full on screaming match. "You won't get away with this this time!"

"You've already been indicted for fabricating evidence once, human. Honestly, I'm amazed you kept your commission," Saren hissed, "Care to go two for two? What did you promise that commander of yours to get her to play along? A bribe? A promotion? You aren't sleeping with her, are you? Assuming that's a female; you humans all look rather similar to me. Not that there's anything wrong with same-gender couples, of course." The last sentence was added after a nervous look at the abruptly furious Asari councillor, who as a member of a single sex species, was most decidedly against any form of homophobia. After all, only about a third of all Asari found male partners.

"What? I am not- You- He's thirty years older than me!". Shepard sputtered. Captain Anderson added something incoherent and, by his tone, highly uncomplimentary to Turians in general and Saren in particular, his hands making tiny, controlled movements toward where his sidearm was usually holstered. Fortunately, the Captain, like everyone else, had disarmed before meeting the council, which saved him from a potential intergalactic incident.

"This session is adjourned," The Salarian councillor stated, glaring at the humans with distrust.

"Saren Arterius is cleared of all charges. You humans disgust me," the Turian councillor added, "Prehaps we should have been investigating you, captain."

"Wait! There's one other matter to discuss," Anderson reminded everyone, "Commander Shepard's vision when she interacted with the beacon. We need to-"

"Oh, are we admitting dreams as evidence, now?" Saren sneered. Like most Turians, his perpetually-exposed teeth gave him an excellent sneer. "I know your species only stopped burning witches recently, but the civilized races haven't accepted dreams as evidence in thousands of years. Do try to keep with the times, you barbarians."

"Expect a hearing in four to six weeks," the Turian councillor told Captain Anderson, "Attempt to leave the citadel and you will be arrested. This meeting was adjourned five minutes ago! Why are you people all just standing here? We're done." The holograms of the council and Saren fizzled out.

* * *

Back in Udina's office, the ambassador poured himself a finger of brown liquid from a flask kept under his desk, considered the bottle, then added two more measures of liquid before gulping it down. "Well, that went worse than I ever imagined it could," the ambassador observed, "Anderson, it was a mistake to bring you along. We should have anticipated that Saren would use your personal history to discredit us. But I don't remember him being such a persuasive speaker before. He never had the patience for it. Ugh, what a mess."

"Any evidence we turn up now will be ignored," analyzed the captain, "We need an outside source or we'll be laughed out of the council. That investigator, Vakarian, he acted like he had something. I could track him down. I know a guy in Csec, Investigator Harkin. He's scum, but he owes me a few favors, so..."

"No," Udina ordered him, "You've done enough damage. Unintentional damage, yes, but damage nonetheless. You are going to quietly stay out of the limelight until Csec finishes with you. Commander Shepard will speak with Vakarian; of all of us, her credibility came out of that meeting with the least damage, I think."

"Fine," Anderson reluctantly agreed, "I wanted to be the one to bring Saren down, but if Shepard has a better chance, she should do it. You'll need to track that drunk Harkin down. I'll send you his mug shot on your Omnitool. Now, slime flows downhill, so at this hour you'll probably find him in Chorra's Den, a rather tacky titty bar down in the lower citadel wards. The place is lit up like a Christmas tree; you can't miss it, even though you probably want to. But, watch yourself in there. The bar's owner, goes by Fist, works for the shadow broker. Do not piss him off without a very good reason..."

Harkin turned out to be easy to locate, and even easier to extract information from. After seeing Kaiden at work, Shepard had to admit that the blue glow that surrounds an active biotic, shining from their eyes and forming an aura to back-light their bodies, was pretty intimidating when viewed from the outside. And Rich picked up his 'good cop' cues perfectly, playing the sympathetic ear with ease. She was glad she'd decided to bring him instead of Ashley. The sergeant, as discovered during Normandy poker night, was a stiff, wooden actress, and Shepard was in no condition to be nice to Harkin. After his drunken flirting, it took the better part of her self-control to refrain from powering up her biotics and putting his head through the wall. After Saren's speech, she was even less in the mood for that sort of thing than usual.

Harkin directed Shepard's away team to a small medical clinic nearby, that Garrus Vakarian was supposedly helping to protect from a local protection racket or something. Harkin wasn't generous with the details, but he was very, very drunk, which went a long way toward explaining why.

Upon arrival to the clinic, Shepard and company were called on to defend it against a small party of thugs. After a brief firefight, and some extremely impressive marksmanship from investigator Vakarian, Shepard was able to interrogate Garrus. Fortunately, the friendly cop was more than happy to share what he knew. A few days ago, a Quarian girl had come into the clinic, badly wounded, for medical attention and antibiotics. She'd mentioned that she had valuable information on Spectre Arterius, and wanted to trade it to the shadow broker for sanctuary against Saren. However, one of the doctors added that she'd directed the girl to Fist, who she'd recently heard had betrayed the shadow broker to work for Saren! The Quarian was going to her death, and taking the evidence with her! The thugs in the clinic were sent to shut the doctors up before they could talk to Garrus, or anyone else.

Shepard left Jenkins to keep the clinic safe (Fist's thugs were not exactly impressive, so one defender was plenty), and exited the clinic with Garrus in tow. The investigator suggested one stop on the way to Fist's bar/base. The shadow broker, furious about Fist's betrayal, hired a bounty hunter to track him down and kill him: an infamous Krogan battlemaster with a reputation for swift results. Csec had picked him up for disturbing the peace, and conspiracy to commit murder (of Fist, who was technically an upstanding businessman). However, now that it looked like Fist was a murderer and possibly a traitor to all life, Garrus was more than happy to add nearly a ton of angry Krogan and heavy hardware to their chances of successfully storming Chorra's Den. Fist's thugs might have been unimpressive, but they were numerous.

Urdnot Wrex, Krogan battlemaster, turned out to be as imposing in person as his rep suggested. Standing nearly two meters tall, the Krogan towered over even Garrus, the former tallest person in Shepard's team. His armor glowed blue with energon feeds, his skin and eyes faintly adding to the harsh light, the sign of a biotic stormeater. The energon lines would constantly infuse his body with the volatile fuel to empower his biotics and natural regeneration. A Krogan is dangerous. A biotic Krogan, a battlemaster, is nearly unbeatable with a full squad of anything else. A stormeater acclimated to energon exposure is, if possible, even tougher.

When Urdnot Wrex's armored crest met the door to Chorra's Den, the hardened steel crumpled like a tin can, allowing Shepard and Wrex to charge the badly outmatched thugs inside, shotguns blazing. Garrus and Kaiden, hanging back to provide covering fire, had almost nothing to do.

Once they actually got to Fist, the cocky criminal quickly caved under Wrex's unblinking stare, and told Shepard and co where he'd sent the Quarian, to be ambushed by three of Saren's top flunkies. When Wrex shot Fist, Shepard declined from saying anything. If Fist's information was accurate, they had only three minutes to save the Quarian, and it wasn't like the guy didn't deserve to die. Shepard would have preferred that Fist stand trial and end up in prison, but after extracting a promise from Wrex to "Follow my lead from now on, damnit!", she decided to save lives now, and ponder moral questions later.

Shepard and her team arrived at the alley Fist had indicated to see a Quarian talking nervously with three other people, two Salarians and a Turian in high-quality armor. Whatever words were exchanged, too far away for Shepard to hear, things obviously heated up fast, as all four went for weapons and cover.

A few hurried hand signals later and Garrus Vakarian unslung his sniper rifle with practiced ease, flicking the ammo counter from nonlethal polymer rounds over to the armor-piercing composite shot typically used by police to halt runaway vehicles; it was also used by military snipers to kill tank operators, whether or not they were currently inside a tank at the time.

The Salarian to the right's head exploded just ahead of the sharp report of Garrus' shot breaching the sound barrier as Shepard terminated a biotic charge with her knee impacting the back of the Turian's head. Amazingly, the assassin actually survived the blow (with her biotics altering physics, a punch or kick from within a biotic charge hits like a heavy sledge), so she finished him off with a few shotgun blasts. Shepard whirled around to deal with the final assassin, only to see him staring down the barrel of the most beautiful thing the human commander had ever seen.

The Quarian's shotgun was almost as long as she was tall, coated in machinery and energon conduits. The heart of the weapon was a massive, Krogan shotgun, the weapon covered with too many modifications to be readily identified. Most Krogan-made weapons are so powerful as to break the bones of a non-Krogan who tries to fire them, which the Quarian had countered with a set of hydraulic braces replacing the weapon's stock. Where a gun's ammunition block usually sat, a thick, braided cord of glowing energon lines fed directly into the barrel, and a salvaged Prothean device jutted out of the assembly, its smooth metal contrasting with the battered, worn Krogan craftsmanship to either side.

The firing of the magnificent weapon was everything Shepard could have hoped for. The length of the barrel lit up energon blue, the glow from the end of the barrel illuminating the terrified Salarian's face as an ominous hum filled the air. With a crackling discharge of power, a brilliant bolt of pure energy leapt from the massive gun, disintegrating everything above the Salarian's waist. A small warning light flashed red three times before the modified shotgun ejected a fist-sized heat sink, venting coolant from slits along the barrel with an explosive hiss. The Quarian drew a new heat sink from her belt, fumbled with it briefly, and slotted it in where the previous one had been. The light flashed again, green this time, and the Quarian turned to Shepard, shotgun leading the way. "Who are you people? What do you want?"

"I have got to get one of those... Er, I'm Commander Shepard, alliance marines," Shepard introduced herself, "We heard you were walking into an ambush and came to help you out. We also heard you could help us; we're building a case against Saren Arterius." The Quarian tilted her helmet slightly, taking in the assassins Garrus and Shepard had dropped, and relaxed, returning the energy weapon to subspace.

"In that case, I'm Tali'zorah Nar Rayya, and it's a pleasure to meet you, commander," the Quarian offered in a brighter tone, "I think maybe we can help each other, and not just because I do commissions."

* * *

"Eden Prime was a major setback, my lord," Saren's recorded voice filled the council chamber, emanating from Tali's Omnitool. The Quarian had used her superior knowledge of Geth hardware to extract an audio file from a destroyed Geth platform, usually impossible as Geth wipe their hard drives upon destruction as a counterintelligence measure. That particular Geth had listened in on a conversation between Saren, his unknown leader, and a third party. As humans say, jackpot. "We failed to keep the Matrix of Leadership out of enemy hands. If someone loyal to the council opens it..."

"You exaggerate the danger, Saren," The dual voice Shepard heard before scoffed, "If you, the greatest hero the Turian people have ever produced, couldn't open the Matrix, who alive possibly could? Besides, there's probably nothing important on there anyway, and even if there was, with no one to read it, it's irrelevant. That dusty old relic won't help anyone now. It certainly didn't help that insufferable fool Ultra Magnus when I ripped out his spark.". The voice took on a mocking, even more gratingly screechy tone. "'Matrix of Leadership, light our darkest hour!'. What a load of superstitious scrap. Pah!"

"The decoding of the Iaconian star charts proceeds ahead of schedule, my lord Sovereign," a third, female voice reported dryly, "Soon we will know the location of the Conduit."

"And the means of the Reapers' glorious return," Saren elaborates as the recording ends.

In the council chamber, everyone is silent, for the barest of seconds, before all three councillors explode into motion.

* * *

"Yes, you heard me right! I said to call off the investigation on that human, Captain Anderson, and get me everything we have on Saren! The damn smug bareface has been playing us this entire time! Yes, that Saren! He's a spirits-damned traitor! No, I'm not drunk, I'm in a council session, and the evidence against him was analyzed by one of your best, no, your best damn investigator. No, that Vakarian boy. Yeah? Well, maybe I should just go and make him Executor, then! Sure he's inexperienced, but he dug up something explosive the rest of you idiots were too blind to see..."

"I said four STG groups; I will not settle for two. We need to find out exactly what that turncoat has been pulling right under our noses. For all we know, he's got an army hidden off somewhere, and none of us any the wiser! Well, he knocked over a human colony and almost slipped it by us, so clearly we don't know as much about him as we ought to, and that is unacceptable..."

"What do you mean he requisitioned six tons of eezo and twelve tons of energon from the Thessian military reserves? And you just gave it to him? Supply requests that big and valuable have to go through the council first, if they're on Spectre authority. No, I don't care how persuasive he was! Matriarch Benezia signed off on it? She's working for him? How the hell'd he convince auntie to go along with the Eden Prime massacre? She'd never- Wait, what?! You just gave a traitor enough fuel and element zero for half a dozen top-of-the-line dreadnoughts and you expect me to..."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, a distinctly ruffled trio of politicians turned their attention back to Commander Shepard, Tali'zorah, and investigator Vakarian, the Turian councillor still making abortive twitches at his Omnitool like he wanted to resume yelling at whichever poor sap next came forward as an unwitting collaborator with the traitorous former Spectre. It seemed that the rot went far deeper than they knew.

Somewhere along the line, Saren had managed to disappear no less than twelve dreadnoughts from the Turian reserve fleet, which contains ships the Turians maintain but do not man to be ready for when wars break out. He had then, with the help of the evidently traitorous Asari Matriarch Benezia T'soni (the other voice in Tali's recording), appropriated enough energon and eezo to modernize the warships, recruited the Geth for additional numbers, and holed up somewhere in the Terminus Systems with his giant black ship and massive army to decode something called the Iaconian archives. His target: a place or object called the Conduit, which would bring about the return of the Reapers, whoever they are.

While the council was convinced that Iacon and Conduit were both code words, the part about the Reapers matched the message Shepard had 'claimed' to see. However, sending a fleet in to scour the Terminus Systems for Saren was not practical, the Turian councillor explained. Without a more exact location, they would be blundering about in the void, fighting every two-bit warlord and loser pirate they came across. With all that noise, Saren would see them coming from light years away and flee. This would tie up large portions of the fleet in a time when every available hand would be needed to recommission the reserve fleets to prepare for the Reapers. A Spectre agent would need to track down the Illusive traitor before they would commit a fleet.

But, Saren has more than a bit of a reputation among the Spectres. Whatever his final loyalties, he was the most effective operative the council ever fielded (and apparently far more skilled than even his commanders believed). The rogue Spectre even stars in many of their boot camp training videos for inexperienced recruits. In order to send an agent who would not be hampered by Saren's monolithic reputation, the council would need to send a new Spectre after him. Someone who had proven themselves tenacious, charismatic, and highly skilled. Someone like...

"As you should know already, before the current disaster Spectre Nihilus Kryk was dispatched to evaluate you, Commander Shepard, as a potential Spectre," the Asari councillor stated, "Although he never gave a final verdict, his reports are favorable, and you displayed great ability in exposing Saren's treachery. If you want it, and the mission to bring former Spectre Saren Arterius to justice, the position remains open to you, commander..."

* * *

The second council meeting in as many days now over, the citadel's newest Spectre agent gathered a council of war in the starship Normandy's meeting room. In addition to Alliance members, including Captain Anderson, ambassador Udina, and the original ground team from Eden Prime, Shepard invited her allies in the struggle to expose Saren: Garrus, Wrex, and Tali. It was these three that the Spectre addressed first.

"You probably already know why I invited you here, but it's worth saying anyway," Shepard began, "I'd like you to continue to help us track down Saren and bring him to justice. I would say this is your last chance to back out, but you don't have a choice. Not really."

"Among his many unpleasant traits, Saren is vengeful, and he never forgets," Captain Anderson explained, "Once you're on his enemies list, you never get off. For the first contact war, he's been murdering innocent humans for over twenty years, and allegiance aside, Saren is one of the most effective and well-connected agents the citadel ever produced. He will have you hunted down and killed, and we still don't know how extensive his network really is. Your only chance is to get him before he gets you."

"Hah, you trying to scare us, human?" Wrex spat, baring his teeth, "Sounds like a good fight. Besides, we wouldn't be here if our answers were no."

"I, well, Saren is a threat to everyone, not just the humans, or even the citadel races," Tali added, "I still need to find something for my pilgrimage, but there's no point in completing that if Saren just destroys everything. Besides, with the commander's record I'm bound to find something worth bringing back."

"As a good Turian, my honor demands I bring the traitor to justice," Garrus grinned, far more good-naturedly than the Krogan's predatory grimace, "As a slightly less good Turian, the council stonewalling me on Saren, well, let's just say it wouldn't have been the first time a monster walked because I got tied up in red tape. I'm interested in seeing how justice works on the other side of the beaurocracy, with a Spectre, where things might actually get done."

"I figured you'd say something like that," Shepard explained, "So now we get to the real business. We need to find Saren, and we have a limited time to do so. Ideas? Anything at all that might be useful."

"The alliance recently received word that our colony on Feros might be under attack," Captain Anderson offered, "We originally thought it was some exotic contaminant that the original terraforming crew missed, but Exogeni, the colony's sponsor, recently picked up traces of its effects in the soil too. They also reported unidentified synthetics skulking around. Testing a new bioweapon on a human colony and leaving Geth observers sounds like Saren's MO to me. Might be worthwhile for you to check it out."

"Don't you mean for us to check it out?" Shepard replied, "I may be a Spectre, but you're still my commanding officer, sir. Spectre status is independent of the chain of command."

"No, I mean you. The alliance is worried that my history with Saren would cloud my judgement," Captain Anderson admitted, "And I can't honestly tell them they're wrong. I've been transferred to Admiral Hackett's sixth fleet. With the new military mobilization he needs all the experienced officers he can get."

"Liara T'soni, matriarch Benezia's daughter, I think she's on Therum," Tali ventured quietly, "I read several of her articles when I was researching how to restore Prothean technology, a few years ago, and it said that she planned to be working on the Therum dig for the next ten years."

"I seem to recall an old buddy of mine from boot camp who works in Alliance R&D mentioned Therum when we met up on the Citadel about a week ago," Kaiden recalled, "He follows all the Prothean dig sites hoping they'll find something his team can try to reverse-engineer. He said the Therum dig is overdue to check in with their sponsoring university. You don't think maybe Saren hit the dig to get Liara's take on Iacon or the Conduit, do you?"

"Csec picked up Benezia herself's trail on sunny Noveria," Garrus shared, "She landed on the planet a few months before Saren was exposed and holed up in a lab owned by Binary Helix. I'll give you one guess who owns a significant share of Binary Helix's stock."

"Therum? That was one of the places from the Prothean message," Shepard added, "The other places sound like they're not particularly time-sensitive. The Noveria situation and whatever's happening on Feros have been going on for months now, maybe longer in Feros' case. The Therum dig couldn't have gone black for more than a few days, or the university sponsoring it would've sent someone to check up on them. I think Saren, or someone important enough to know where he is, is most likely to be on Therum. That's our destination."

* * *

 **Codex**

Prothean Worker Drones

The Protheans, much like the more modern Quarians, preferred mechanical servants to performing labor themselves. These worker drones, operated by complex VI programs and containing technologies the citadel races still struggle to comprehend, have been found in moderate to large numbers in every Prothean site save the Mars cache, which nonetheless contained many parts from destroyed drones. Each drone is highly unique in color scheme, design, and build-in tools (and sometimes weapons and armor), but works off a much smaller set of underlying frames. Prevailing speculation suggests that Protheans personalized their drones, treating them much like humans and Turians treat a beloved household pet. However, as no drone has yet been recovered intact, and the synthetics lose large parts of their programming when they lose power (believed to be an anti-theft measure that proves quite inconvenient to archeologists), the exact purpose and methods of construction of these drones may never be discovered.

The Citadel

The citadel is a massive space station many times larger than anything else ever constructed. Like the mass relays that dot the galaxy, connecting inhabited worlds, the citadel is presumed to have been build by the Protheans to aid their travel around the galaxy. The citadel council uses the space station as its capitol world, supported by the station's massive population. However, unlike all other Prothean technology, neither the mass relays nor the citadel use energon as fuel, and rather than maintenance nanomachines, techno organic beings called Keepers maintain the citadel. A small but vocal minority of Prothean history experts, working off of papers published by Dr. Liara T'soni cite this as evidence than the Protheans did not build the mass relay network or the citadel. The lack of inactive Prothean drones found on the citadel supports this theory, but as there is no other known force that could build the gargantuan devices, most academics have decided to assume that the Protheans built them until another possibility surfaces.

The Krogan Rebellions

Many centuries ago, the citadel council, then only containing the Salarians, Asari, and a number of client races, came under attack by a vicious, insectoid race called the Rachni. Outnumbered and outgunned, as the Rachni had somehow reactivated an insectoid type of Prothean drone to bolster their already formidable forces, the citadel armed forces rapidly lost ground. In desperation, the Salarians provided weapons and technology to a recently-discovered race still recovering from a self-inflicted nuclear winter, the Krogan. Despite being bombed into a glowing wasteland, the Krogan home world of Tuchanka is one of the most actively hostile places in the galaxy, and Krogan, despite being intelligent, are fairly low on the Tuchankan food chain. Everywhere else in the galaxy, a Krogan, typically standing two meters tall and possessing both multiple, redundant organs and regeneration that can close flesh wounds in seconds, is nearly unstoppable when given modern weapons and armor. With the Krogan at the vanguard, the Rachni and their machines were annihilated. However, the Salarians helped the Krogan become the finest warriors in the galaxy. They provided none of the culture, social maturity, and discipline that other races gained in the acquisition of such firepower. The Krogan knew how to fight, and nothing else. If not for the timely intervention of another newly discovered and technologically advanced race, the Turians, the Krogan would have conquered the galaxy, and then probably self-destructed in a spectacularly world-spanning civil war. The Turian fleets battled the Krogan warlords to a brutal, grinding standstill while Salarians scientists deployed a bioweapon, the Genophage, to neuter ninety nine percent of the Krogan race and force the remaining Krogan to throw down their arms or face extinction. The Krogan could no longer breed faster than their enemies could kill them. The remaining Krogan have spread across the galaxy, most living their bitter, solitary lives as mercenaries until they run into someone bigger and badder than themselves. In a few generations, unless something changes, the Krogan will likely become extinct.

Salarians

Salarians are an amphibious, short-lived race known for intellectual ability and an abundance of energy. A Salarian, so the saying goes, burns bright and hot; they produce great things and live life at a breakneck speed, but are lucky to see sixty years of life. Turians and humans routinely see over a hundred and Asari many times that. The Salarian union contributes most of the citadel council's spies and scientists, and the Salarian intelligence organization known as the STG is widely regarded as the most effective spy organization in the known galaxy, although the Systems Alliance black ops group known as Cerberus has recently begun gaining on the STG's reputation and records in leaps and bounds.

Asari

Asari are a race of blue-skinned beings resembling beautiful human females; yes, every single one of them, barring disfiguring injury, is close to physical perfection. Furthermore, as Asari mate using a process that is part psychic link, part biotics, they can have children with absolutely anyone. This, combined with the Asari life cycle, has given the species a mostly unwarranted reputation for being an entire race of loose women. Asari can live for a thousand years, during which they go through three distinct stages. Maiden Asari are young and generally have less emotional control. They rarely have children, and a very high profile minority of them become mercenaries, citadel council soldiers, exotic dancers, or prostitutes to bleed off their more primal urges. The rest, much like young people of other species, attend schools and universities, seeking understanding and work experience in a more conventional manner. Matron Asari are more mature and collected than their younger fellows, and generally have at least one daughter during this phase. Most Asari seen off of Thessia and outside of the four maiden professions are matrons. Matriarch Asari are the oldest and rarest, if only because the dangerous lifestyles favored by many maidens mean that few Asari survive this long. Matriarchs are universally powerful biotics and skilled politicians, using the wisdom and skill gained over hundreds of years to guide and lead their people. However, they also have a tendency to assume that they always know best, whether or not others agree. Despite their relatively small numbers compared to the other council races, the Asari hold a great deal of military power thanks to their technology and unique biology. Asari tech always seems to be just a little more advanced than everyone else's, and the high concentration of elements zero on the Asari home world of Thessia makes even the least Asari a powerful biotic. Furthermore, Asari and Krogan are the only races capable of surviving direct exposure to energon. Mainlining the volatile substance can give an Asari or biotic Krogan 'stormeater' an immense, temporary boost in biotic power, although an overdose can still be fatal. Without energon, the Asari are the best biotics in the galaxy. With energon, a team of elite commandos can tear a frigate out of orbit with their minds alone, although doing so would exhaust them. Matriarch Asari are notable for a significantly greater tolerance for energon exposure than younger Asari. Some matriarchs, and a few especially hardy Krogan biotics, are known to constantly expose themselves to energon, gradually growing accustomed to the strain and gaining constant access to their full power. However, this practice comes at the cost of the biotic in question becoming dependent on energon, unable to survive without it. Also, the process of building up resistance to energon poisoning has a fifty percent chance of fatality, and an additional ten percent chance of crippling brain or organ damage.

* * *

 **A.N. Poor, poor Ultra Magnus. It seems like all his appearances serve only to illustrate how much less awesome he is than his brother. It must suck to constantly be compared to Optimus Prime. And because this is Optimus Prime we're talking about, Ultra Magnus always comes up short. The plot demanded that he die this time, but I hope that someday some intrepid author of fiction or fanfiction will go where no one has gone before and give Ultra Magnus his chance to shine...**

 **I always wondered why Saren didn't take the political pull he had for his status as a famous and respected Spectre and Benezia's immense influence and milk them for all they were worth until Tali and Shepard exposed him. I also wondered why Shepard didn't have Garrus check over the evidence to give it extra credibility; as a detective certified by the council, he certainly could have put some extra weight on her accusations and opinions. So here, they did. Saren made off with a nasty navy, and the Garrus helped convince the council to look a little more closely at Saren's extracurricular activities. Plus, Tali's sound bite is much longer and more detailed this time. The council is panicking right now; they'll be mostly back to the uncooperative, obtuse, power hungry politicos we all know and love in a few chapters. For a few chapters. Why stop? Not every Cybertronian is as humble, politically inexperienced, and vulnerable to conventional mass accelerators as Arcee... Also, they know Saren has a formidable army this time around, even if the Reapers are a myth according to them.**


	3. More Than Meets The Eye

**Theme Music: Transformers Classic Theme by Lion. Only the Lion version or a cover will do.**

* * *

Few things move on Therum. Heat mirages shimmer up from the volcanic world's lava pits and cinder cones,but the barren and often molten rock could not support life if any had evolved. Few things break the silence of Therum. Aside from the occasional popping bubble of volcanic gas and distant thunder, all is silent. Even the weather declines to break the silence, for the only weather on Therum is the occasional whispering ash storm. Thunder, approaching you, on Therum?

A lone Geth sentry, making its rounds, paused to contemplate this. Therum had never had thunder before as far as it knew, and the Geth possessed both perfect, computerized memory and access to survey data dating back hundreds of years. The eighty-two programs running on this particular platform briefly consulted one another, but were unable to come to consensus. The platform was about to comm the main server hub for an eighty-third opinion, when the program responsible for the platform's left auditory sensor pointed out that it was now also picking up a steadily rising whine, and didn't it sound like that thunder was getting closer? Hoping for clarification, the platform turned toward the noise, its optical programs adjusting its cyclopean visual sensor for optimum zoom, and... the platform's head exploded.

"Yes! That makes it twelve to eight, old man," Garrus Vakarian gloated, from his perch on top of the Mako, the light, six-wheeled Alliance APC, passing his top-of-the-line Widow sniper rifle to a distinctly sour-looking Urdnot Wrex.

"Bah. I've still dropped more of them than you, Csec," the Krogan grumbled, sighting down the rifle's scope as the Mako ran over the remains of Garrus' latest victim, the vehicle's excellent shocks keeping the two snipers from being thrown about, "And it's nine to twelve," Wrex added as he fired another shot, neatly decapitating another synthetic.

"It's not my fault you decided only head shots would count," Garrus needled, accepting his rifle back and checking the heat sink with a practiced motion, "What was it you said? That head shots are the mark of a real expert? I guess that makes me- Gah, rocket tube!" Garrus swung the rifle around and blindly fired off a volley of shots, causing his rifle to overheat with a plaintive whine. One lucky round struck the Geth's rocket just as it was leaving the launcher, sending the unfortunate platform flying back in several pieces. "You see that, Old man? That there is skills."

"Not a headshot," the Krogan mercenary pointed out mildly.

"What?" Still riding the high, and surrounded by the Mako's noise, Garrus hadn't heard exactly what the Krogan said.

"It wasn't a head shot," Wrex clarified, "So it doesn't count!"

"Spirits! Impaled on my own sword," Garrus cursed, passing his prized weapon back to Wrex.

"I understand the importance of fire discipline," Ashley shouted back at the two snipers from her seat in the Mako's main gun, raking a heavy armature with the Gatling mass accelerator before blowing the synthetic's torso to pieces with an explosive shell. "But my grandmama, God rest her soul, was quicker on the draw than you morons! Less jawing, more anti-infantry! Shit!" The last statement accompanied an abrupt jerk upwards, causing the marine to miss with her next explosive, as down in the driver's seat Rich goosed the vehicle's jump jets to clear an unexpected, lava-filled trench. "Can't you give us a smoother firing platform, private? If Garrus wins this damn contest because you keep jerking us around at the wrong moment, he's gonna be impossible to live with!"

"You like swimming in lava?" Commander Shepard shouted up from the navigator's seat, looking slightly green as she held up the Prothean relic from Eden Prime in the direction it glowed brightest to give Jenkins an approximate direction, "If not, then quit it with the back seat driving and shoot more Geth!"

"Gah! Son of a bitch!" Back in the cockpit, Kaiden recoiled from an overtaxed circuit, shielding his eyes from the sparks. After a few seconds of frozen inactivity, Tali pulled the human out of the shield technician's seat, further polarized her envirosuit's visor, and belted herself in, tridactyl hands running over the unfamiliar human keyboard to restabilize the shields around the blowout.

"We're taking a beating down here, Commander," the plucky Quarian reported, "We've got a hole in the shields that'll go down to a few solid hits. I moved it to the back, so tell Garrus and Wrex to step it up or those bosh'tets out there will put a rocket into our bumpers! Eeep! I said bosh'tet! I said it again!"

"Damn it! Quit passing that widow around like a bottle of engine water!" Shepard unfolded her own, barely-used Alliance sniper rifle, reached out the hatch, and cracked Wrex about the crest with it, prompting the Krogan to grab the unexpected offering, "Just take this and get shooting!"

"We still on the right course, Commander?" Rich asked politely as Shepard returned to her chair. He pumped the brakes, swerving around a Geth armature and floored the jets again, flattening a second heavy Geth under the Mako's bulk. A Geth dropship passed overhead, ready to land more troops, but the Normandy swept past, trailing Geth fighters, and raked the larger vessel from stem to stern with its GUARDIAN lasers. Smoke pouring from the resultant rents in its armor, the dropship listed toward a mountain about a kilometer away.

Shepard raised the Prothean relic and waved it about, producing a bright, blue glow. "Go more east," she estimated, hand flying to her earpiece to congratulate the starship's pilot, "Great shot, Joker! It's hot enough down here as it is!"

"Tell Garrus and Wrex 'fifty'," Joker replied, "Our lasers aren't strong enough to penetrate heavy armor like that in atmosphere. I had to hit a weak spot to down the dropship with just one pass."

"The only weak spot on a Geth dropship is its central processor," Tali helpfully explained, pushing Kaiden back into the shield tech's post and levering the fried cables out with a wrench and Jenkins' Bowie knife as she talked. "Basically, the ship's brain. Brains are kept in heads. Each dropship carries forty-eight Geth platforms."

"So Joker got a head shot. On a starship filled with Geth. All of whom he technically destroyed with a single laser burn to the head," Shepard groaned, "Well, at least we know Joker keeps his victory dances short..."

Trailing sparks and drops of energon from numerous minor hits, the Mako rolled to a halt near a steep, narrow canyon. "Everybody out, this is our stop," Jenkins called out, "The main dig site's on the other side of the canyon, but the walls are too steep for the Mako. We'll have to continue on foot, but at least it isn't far."

"Right, everybody get ready to move out," Shepard ordered, " Joker, once you lose those fighters, swing around and pick up the Mako. We can't afford to replace it. The rest of you, pack for urban combat. The Protheans liked to build with lots of tall, winding halls, so we need to be ready for enemies from all ranges. Ashley, Wrex, make sure to bring the heavy weapons. If we run into one of those armatures on foot I do not want to be stuck throwing grenades at it and praying something gets through its shield."

* * *

"Everybody aim for the big one! Drop its shields!" Of course, there couldn't just be an armature waiting for them. No, Shepard's team crested the hill summited by the university dig site to be confronted by a Geth Prime, the most formidable soldier the synthetics could deploy, backed up by a full platoon of snipers and electronic warfare platforms. As if things weren't challenging enough, the electronic warfare models could jump and cling to walls like giant laser frogs. Fortunately, Commander Shepard had a plan. Not a great plan, but it was better than nothing. Probably... "We'll take out the heavy and then mop up the rest!"

Bereft of solid cover thanks to the huge Geth's dual plasma cannons and surprisingly accurate Gatling gun, Shepard's team found brief shelter behind Rich's energon barrier. It would only hold up for a few seconds, but hopefully that would be all they needed. Activating their omnitools and charging biotics, the organic soldiers prepared their best anti-shield attacks.

Shepard struck first, her factory-standard overload playing over the heavy Geth's shields with no apparent effect. Garrus' custom program had far greater impact, the arcs of electricity homing in in electrostatic disturbances caused by weak points in the Geth's barriers.

While Shepard and Garrus gave the Geth Prime their best shots, Tali frantically tapped away at her Omnitool, huddled behind Rich's barrier. As the Quarian pumped her fist in triumph, the massive Geth's weakened shields vanished completely. "Shields down," Shepard shouted, "Kaiden, Wrex, Ashley, hit it now!"

The human biotic struck first, his warp field tearing at the Geth's heavy armor and delicate internal components, causing it to freeze briefly as it tried to bypass the damaged hardware. It also gave Wrex and Ashley a stationary target. The Krogan drew upon his own biotics, a bright, energon-charged corona surrounding his hunched form, and sent an orb of brilliant energy the size of a bowling ball slamming into the huge Geth. Space shuddered, and collapsed inward and somehow down, the point of simulated infinite density created by Wrex's overpowered singularity drawing the Geth off its feet but failing to overwhelm its armor and crush it. Until Ashley fired a rocket into the Geth Prime's center of mass.

The rocket, drawn to its target by Wrex's gravitational anomaly, blew a decent-sized hole in the Geth. More importantly, it also compromised the armor's carefully engineered crystalline structure. While intact, the armor was nearly impervious to damage. But once broken, it quickly shattered, cracks spreading from the blast point as the Geth was pulverized by the energon-fueled singularity. With the most dangerous of the Geth (and the one providing most of the squad's total processing power) gone, the rest proved easy to mop up.

"How'd you do that?" Garrus asked Tali curiously, once the team had confirmed the area at least temporarily secure, "You didn't shoot an overload or anything else at it, so how'd you get the shields down?"

"We, that is, the Quarians, made the Geth. We know all the back doors into their code," Tali replied, "Any malware introduced will be quickly found and neutralized, of course; no organic hacker can match a true AI. But, when the Geth nearby aren't numerous, the malware gets a chance to do something before they can remove it. So, I routed the Geth Prime's shield power supply to its sensors, which brought down the shields and slowed its response time as it tried to cope with the increased data stream. It's sort of like a combined overload and DOS attack. It only works on isolated Geth, and it has to be individualized for each platform you hit; the five Geth here were at the upper limit for the trick to work."

"So you can't teach me to do that, or send me the program," The Turian realized, "And it only works on synthetics. Still useful, but not what I was hoping for."

"Sorry, but unless you want to spend the next five years studying AI and VI coding, and another five years learning to do it under fire, you're out of luck," Tali told him cheerfully, "You can't get rid of me that easily!"

"I wasn't trying to," Garrus protested, "I just wanted to know if I could get something more effective than the usual overload."

"Hmmm," the young engineer pondered the problem for a few minutes, before shifting it to the back burner as Shepard stationed Rich, Ashley, and Kaiden to keep the Geth from ambushing the search party while the rest of them prepared to descend into the Prothean ruin. "Talk to me again when we're back on the Normandy and I'll see what I can do."

Meanwhile, the rest of the group began their descent. Wrex and Shepard first, Tali in the middle, and Garrus bringing up the rear. Wrex and Shepard were both close combat specialists, Tali had the best chance of any of them to deal with any traps or hostile Prothean machinery, and Garrus provided much-needed versatility with has longer-range weapons.

Left unsaid was that with the tensions left over from the First Contact War, Shepard didn't want to leave the Turian alone with the human soldiers. Kaiden was level-headed as they come, but Rich was a bit of a hot-head and she didn't know Ashley all that well yet. None of them would be stupid enough to actually start a fight... Shepard hoped so, anyway. But, she didn't want to leave Garrus in hostile territory surrounded by people who didn't trust him.

Not that the infiltration team was much better. Wrex probably still hated Turians on principle for their role in the Krogan rebellions, and Shepard... Well, she was trying to keep an open mind about the spike head. At least Tali was a friendly face- No, the Turians denied the Quarian migrant fleet refugee status and aid after they lost the Mourning War. The Salarians voted no, the Asari voted yes as much for their image as anything else, and the Turians were the deciding vote. Tali had as much cause to hate Turians as the rest of them, though Garrus seemed to be winning people over pretty well so far.

(Shepard had nothing against Asari in general, but their style over substance politics made the Spectre want to shoot someone. Possibly the Asari councillor. The lady had been in office for longer than humanity had been launching starships, and were term limits really a uniquely human concept? Apparently, yes)

Making a mental note to talk to her crew later for some conflict resolution, Shepard clipped a flashlight under her shotgun as the team descended into the poorly lit Prothean structure. The university class had dug a mine shaft down to reach the ruin's buried entrance, complete with rickety, prefabricated elevators of the sort used when price is more important than safety. Although that might not be giving the devices enough credit. Despite being corroded, damaged by seismic shifts, and by the look of them shot a few times, the elevators remained functional. That had to count for something, though it wasn't exactly comforting when one's life depended on the things.

Sure enough, because the universe really wanted to give Commander Shepard a heart attack, the elevator stalled most of the way down in a screech of metal, just high enough that after jumping down they would be unable to get back up. To make matters worse, a party of Geth was waiting for them at the bottom, and the team would have no cover at all unless they jumped. Perhaps Jenkins would have been a better choice than Garrus after all...

At Shepard's decision and command, her team jumped down to meet the Geth, dodging into cover behind the university's excavation equipment under a hail of bullets. The shredded elevator, crashing to the ground behind them, confirmed that Shepard had likely made the correct choice. The Spectre and her team would simply have to find another way up. On the other hand, only three Geth platforms were at the bottom, no match for two trained biotics backed up by Tali's shield-ignoring energy weapon. Its long charge time and short range had rendered it useless against the Geth Prime but in these tight quarters the weapon easily blew apart a Geth Juggernaut while Garrus, Shepard and Wrex riddled its two lesser companions with bullets. With the threats down, Shepard and her team were free to explore the chamber. Shepard's attention was drawn by a faint blue glow from the far wall, the Matrix of Leadership in her backpack pulsing in unseen agreement as the human drew closer.

"Hey, team, come take a look at this," Shepard called, bringing her allies in for a closer look, "A Prothean energy shield, and an Asari stuck behind it. In a shield bubble. Huh."

"Am I hallucinating again? Already?" the Asari asked no one in particular, "I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you to leave for a while. You see, I've been having hallucinations of a Krogan and a couple of robots every hour, on the hour, and my hallucinations are apparently quite concerned about punctuality. Somewhat surprising, actually, since I seem to loose track of time and meals quite often while working. You aren't even particularly entertaining figments of my imagination. At least the other one was kind of funny; he beat himself silly trying to head butt his way through the shield the last time he was here. Just between you and me, I think that part of my brain is running out of ways to pretend I might be rescued. But of course you won't tell anyone else, since you're all me." For a few moments, all the rescue team could manage was a blank stare.

"How... How long have you been in there, exactly?" Garrus buzzed, recovering first from the mutual moment of 'What the hell?'.

"Oh, so now I want to ruminate on my own stupidity? I suppose that could be interesting; I haven't done that yet," the Asari continued in the same light, absent tone as before, "I heard guns firing up above when I stopped for a coffee break two, no, three days ago. Wonderful invention, coffee, those humans are geniuses, every last one. I ought to do something for them, since their beverage got me through finals junior year with straight As. Thessian tea just doesn't have quite the same... potency, you know. I'd suggest you all try it, but for some reason some of my figments have dextro-amino acids and might die from it. Actually, since none of you really exist, go ahead! Since you're me, I'm sure you'll like it."

"What about the guns?" Shepard attempted to refocus the drifting Asari, "And Tali, Garrus, see if you can find a way to bring that shield down."

"The shield? That's easy, just use the control panel over there," the Asari motioned to a row of buttons at head height on the other side of the main shield, "Though you know everything I do, so that was completely unnecessary. Oh, right, the attack! When I heard the gunfire I panicked and tried to activate this Prothean device to protect me. But I must have mistranslated something because the second shield trapped me in here and the external shield will keep any rescuers from helping."

While Shepard was talking to the suspended Asari, her squad-mates examined the shield separating them from her. "Not an energon shield," Garrus reported, squinting at the readings from his Omnitool in the dim light, "Probably mass effect based, which is odd. I was given to understand that the Protheans preferred energon barriers."

Wrex drew his pistol and fired several rounds at the barrier, observing the ripples spreading from each impact point. "Definitely mass effect," the Krogan confirmed, "Solid rounds just bounce off energon shields. You need a kinetic barrier to get a ripple pattern like this, 'cause the rounds partially penetrate and disrupt the barrier's surface. What? I've seen and broken a lotta shields before."

Then how do you suggest we get it down," Tali inquired, "Oh great and wise battlemaster sir?"

"Heh. Kinetic barriers stop any physical object," Wrex laid out his thoughts, "And with an external, ground-bound power source even the Normandy's guns might not be able to break it. We certainly don't have the firepower. And kinetic barriers also disrupt biotics, even my biotics. But Tali's hand cannon ought to punch right through. As for targets, I thhink you ought to just shoot the control panel."

"But what if it locks down when we shoot it?" Tali argued, "Then the Asari would be stuck!"

"Can you hack it?" Garrus asked, "I mean, how much more trouble is a Prothean computer than some Geth?"

"Not too much harder. I could probably do it," the engineer allowed, "But I'd need a hardware connection. Prothean comms are... Really weird. They won't even let you in the system unless you have a special iff code, and even if you use a code ripped straight from a drone it doesn't work. I think the computers look for something we can't detect in the iff systems, and hedge out anyone who doesn't have it. It's probably part of what gets erased when a drone gets 'sploded."

"So then blast the area just under the shield, and keep shooting until you expose enough wires for a land line," Wrex ordered her, "This does not have to be as complicated as you make it sound!" Putting action to words, the Krogan strode over to the shield, dropped a biotic warp over a particularly sturdy-looking panel, and ripped the weakened metal apart with his bare hands. "You people talk too much."

It took Tali half an hour of mumbling, muffled cursing, and helpful suggestions from Garrus, but the Prothean shield finally dropped, allowing Commander Shepard to access the control panel and free the Asari. "Wait, you're real?!" she gasped, "But all those things I said... And I- Oh, goddess!"

"Hey, don't worry about it, your mind can go strange places after a few days without food and water," Shepard reassured the former captive, "I'm Commander Shepard, Alli- Council Spectre, and my team and I are here to rescue you."

"Ah. I am Dr. Liara T'soni, erm, intern. I... Did anyone else survive the attack?" the Asari introduced herself, standing on shaky legs.

"If they did, they were captured before we got here," Shepard replied, "Maybe by that Krogan you saw earlier. Did you catch his name?"

"I am afraid not. He never said, and I didn't ask, as I was not wholly convinced he existed. Sorry," The historian apologuised, "What I don't understand, though, is why they attacked us at all. There's nothing of importance on Therum! Most of the interesting artifacts were sent back to the University of Thessia weeks ago. All that's left is a few Autobot drones and a few intact residences our sociologist is... Was over the moon about."

"Oh," Well, Shepard thought, this is going to be awkward. "Liara, when was the last time you talked to your mother?"

"Benezia? I don't think we've spoken in years," Liara mumbled in bemusement, "She always supported my interests, of course, but I think she was quite disappointed when I majored in history rather than following her into politics. Therum is rather isolated, and I suppose it was just... Easier to fall out of communication."

"So then you don't know that Matriarch Benezia helped Saren Arterius, traitor to the council, level Eden Prime, steal and modernize twelve dreadnoughts and build up an army of Geth to do god knows what," Shepard confirmed, "Then I suppose the words Conduit and Iacon mean nothing to you?"

"Mother did what?! Why would she- I mean- She's a pacifist!" Liara sputtered, "That doesn't make sense! Are you certain?"

"As we can be," Shepard confirmed sadly. How would she feel if Hannah Shepard turned up by Saren's side? Not that it would ever happen... "The STG identified her voice print from a recording of her conspiring with Saren."

"But Iacon, and a Conduit? Iacon, Iacon, I could swear I've heard or read that name before, but I can't quite remember..." the Asari mused, "What sort of conduit? Air, water, fuel, energon...?"

"The Conduit. Like a place, like there's only one," Shepard corrected, "And they're both supposed to be Prothean. As in, the archives from Iacon contain the location of the Conduit."

"Once we're off Therum and I've had a chance to rest, I could do some research," Liara offered, "But off the top of my head I can't think of anything they might be... I can see why Saren would want to recruit me, though. This is definitely in my field, and I'm young enough to not be missed. People would just assume that I've finally succumbed to my maidenly exuberance and gone off mercing or whoring somewhere." A gusty sigh escaped the academic's lips, "Why can't people under three hundred get respect on Thessia? It just isn't fair."

"Three hundred? No, we'll talk later," Shepard muttered, "Right. The lift we came down on is sort of... Broken. We need another way out. Ms T'soni, is there any other way to the surface?"

"Yes, there should be," Liara shared, "It's through the drone graveyard, this way. I can give directions, but... Oh! I think I'm going to need a shoulder to lean on..."

* * *

Having the least effective weapons in tight quarters, Garrus ended up supporting the weakened Asari as the team tramped through what Liara had described as the drone graveyard. From her remarks, Commander Shepard had expected a small find with a few drones. Instead, ten Autobots in varying amounts of pieces littered a massive cave, while drag marks and disturbed dust indicated where more intact drones had been removed and shipped to Thessia. Wrex stood near the slow-moving Turian and Asari as protection, but Shepard was forced to dash all over the cavern to keep Tali covered, as the excitable Quarian flitted from one pile of junk to the other, insisting on getting readings from every. Single. One. Until...

"Guys? I think you should see this," Tali called out, voice echoing against the vaulted ceiling. Shepard took a closer look at the drone Tali had just scanned. It certainly didn't look remarkable.

The drone was relatively small as far as Prothean drones go, maybe fourteen feet from head to foot, with delicate, intricate joints and spindly limbs. Even before the human noticed the synthetic's red insignia among the worn, faded paint the drone's design screamed civilian. The drone was mostly grey, but elements of its original blue and black paint job had survived fifty million years of the elements. The drone's optics, unlike most of its fellows, we're shuttered tightly, over a streamlined, open face. The synthetic practically screamed that it was designed to be nonthreatening. No military hardware was designed like that. Even the undercover stealth ships Shepard had encountered managed a vague aura of menace.

"What's so special about this particular pile of rust and scrap?" Wrex asked, giving the drone's torso a nudge with his foot, "Doesn't look like much."

"Looks aren't the whole picture!" Tali exclaimed excitedly, "I'm getting energy readings. Energy readings! Don't you know what this means?" When Wrex and Shepard's expressions stated that no, they had no idea, the Quarian elaborated. "It still has power! That means that it's VI core might be intact! If we can repair it enough, we could talk to an actual Prothean VI! That would be the perfect gift for my pilgrimage! And, it might know what Iacon or the Conduit is! We have to take it with us."

Garrus, Wrex, and Shepard looked at each other, and then everybody looked at Wrex. "I'm gonna have to lug this thing to the surface, aren't I." the Krogan muttered. It wasn't really a question. No one else in the squad was likely to be able to carry half a ton of metal any useful distance.

Team Shepard made it to the surface without trouble, Wrex grumbling all the way about "Stupid, thin-boned pyjacks and their godsdamned science, gotta get another Krogan in the squad, make him do the heavy lifting."

The lift itself worked much better than fifty million year old machinery had any right to, smoothly conveying the soldiers, rescuee, and cargo toward the surface. When they reached the top they didn't have any trouble either, despite being confronted by a heavily armed Krogan and a squad of Geth. Wrex defeated him by the simple expedient of hurling the drone at the hostiles, scattering them like bowling pins, and executing the enemy Krogan, pinned under the drone, with a shotgun blast to the face. The remaining Geth were dispatched with relative ease, and after picking up their rear guard (and talking Rich and Ashley into helping carry the drone) Shepard called the Normandy for an extraction from the very successful mission.

* * *

Several hours later, the away team, minus Tali, who no one was brave enough to tear from her new project, met in the Normady's briefing room. Having showered, gotten medical attention, and had a chance to recover, the commander felt it was a good idea to debrief while the mission was still fresh in people's minds. They needed to introduce Liara to the rest of the team, and bringing her up to speed. The (relatively) young Asari was appalled by what her mother had apparently done, and vowed to help the team in any way she could. Still, successful missions are successful missions and aside from ordering Liara to make sure she got some more rest, there wasn't much for the group to say.

Liara returned to the recovery room behind the ship's medical center, promising to get some rest and start her research into Iacon and the Conduit. Kaiden and Garrus headed down to the hold to see if they could help Tali repair the drone, with a mildly curious Wrex trailing behind. He was, though he'd never admit it, interested in seeing what the thing he'd lugged back to the ship would turn out to be. Rich Jenkins challenged Ashley to a nice, relaxing round or three of Spectre of Valor, gold edition, with all the DLC, and Shepard had to report to the council. That was going to be fun.

"Spectre Shepard, reporting in," the human saluted before holograms of the council in the Normandy's communication suite, "My team and I just completed a mission on Therum, where we rescued the Prothean history expert Liara T'soni from Saren's forces. Saren himself was not on Therum, but Dr. T'soni believes she can figure out what Iacon and the Conduit are by research. Unless something urgent comes up, we will stop by the citadel for resupply before heading toward our next objective, the colony on Feros."

"Feros? Are you certain that is a wise choice, commander?". The Asari councillor questioned, "You know where Benezia is now. Why not strike, before she can flee?"

"With all due respect, councillor," Shepard said, in a carefully neutral tone, "Part of being a Spectre agent is acting on my own initiative. If you're already that doubtful of my judgement..."

"Not at all, Commander," the Salarian councillor stated, "But after Saren's... Actions, we feel it wise to keep a closer eye on our Spectres' actions. And I, for one, am most supportive of your choice.". The other two councillors gave him disagreeable looks, but the Salarian held firm. "Really? You do not understand? Shepard has a new team. Never worked all together before. Therum was a good shakedown mission, but not enough. Need to learn to work together before battling a matriarch and her commando squads. Also, biological/chemical warfare worrisome. Especially when waterborne. I would be most grateful if the weapon, should it exist, never see another use."

Salarians, Shepard remembered, are amphibians whose young spend all their time in water. A waterborne poison could drive their species to extinction. By choosing Feros as her next destination, she'd just scored some major points with the Salarian Union. She couldn't think of a way for having the person the STG answers to on her side to be a bad thing. In fact, maybe it was an opportunity?

"Councillor, you seem to be following the situation on Feros closely," the Spectre guessed, "Do you have anything that would be helpful for me to know that perhaps wasn't put in my original brief?"

* * *

Commander Shepard never slept well after a mission. Even the ones that went well. Despite knowing she would be a wreck the next day, she couldn't seem to help herself turning the mission over and over in her head for things she could have done better, mistakes she had made. The Therum mission had gone about as well as a mission could have, but that hadn't slowed her whirling thoughts much, if at all. So, when she staggered down to the Normandy's tiny galley the following morning and groped around on the counter, it took a few minutes for it to register that her objective was strangely absent. "Uh, what happened to the coffee maker?"

"Tali," Wrex spat, glaring at a mug of tea as though it had personally betrayed him, "Dragged it off at around five o'clock, earth time, yammering about energon distillation and power draw and copper. When I tried to rescue it, she growled at me. Actually growled at me! I could pick my teeth with her, not that I would, and she growled at me! Gotta respect that kind of guts, but, well, tea." The last word was imbued with all the loathing Wrex felt it deserved, that is to say, quite a bit.

Now that Shepard was feeling a bit more coherent, the kitchen was looking a bit... Bare. "What about the toaster?"

"Tali," Jenkins supplied, "She wanted the heating coils and insulation for something. I didn't ask what, and I probably wouldn't have understood the answer anyway."

"And the microwave?"Shepard was starting to notice a pattern here.

"Tali," Dr. Chakwas confirmed, pressing a fresh mug of tea into Shepard's hands, "She said it had a higher output than the television. Output of what, I felt it wiser not to ask. I probably wouldn't like the answer."

"She is feeling inspired," Kaiden elaborated, searching a cupboard for something that would be edible cold, "You ought to take a look, commander. Frankly, I didn't think it was possible for her to make so much progress this quickly. Also, I don't think it's sunk in for her that she's not in the migrant fleet anymore and we'd be perfectly happy to give her some spare parts and energon for her personal project. Last I saw she was siphoning energon out of the Mako's fuel tank, and I'm pretty sure the innate respect for ships every Quarian gets drilled into them as kids is the only thing keeping her from drilling into the walls."

"I think Tali and I need to have a talk," Shepard muttered, "And maybe I can rescue the coffe maker before she goes and does something unnatural to it."

When Shepard reached the Normandy's rather expansive cargo hold, several thoughts chased each other through her brain. First and foremost was an eloquent 'What the fuck,' which quickly acquired more illuminating pursuers, such as 'How the hell did she make a smelter out of scavenged appliance parts,' and 'Wait, what the hell is she smelting on my ship?'. As Shepard watched in blank astonishment, Tali turned a crank on the side of her smelter and started drawing copper wire, the thin metal quickly cooling to recognizability. Well, that sort of explained what she wanted copper for... And Garrus, Liara, and Ashley, standing in a corner watching the action, had done absolutely nothing to help save the poor coffee maker. They probably enjoyed tea, the monsters.

A beep drew Shepard's attention to the Mako, where a long, flexible pipe snaked from the vehicle's fuel tank to the drone's chest, vanishing into a space between two of the plates that formed the Prothean machine's skin. The drone was looking a much brighter and less patchy shade of blue, almost like it was somehow healthier. Shepard descended to the hold's floor as Tali, merrily humming a song Shepard had never heard before, finished coating her new wire with plastic scavenged from god knows where and started soldering lengths into the drone's arm. Too slowly for organic eyes to measure, the drone's color improved a little more as additional systems were brought back to functionality. The Matrix of Leadership, lying unnoticed on a nearby bench, glowed a little brighter with each added part, its dim glow failing to overwhelm the Normandy's harsh, industrial lighting.

"Commander!" Tali exclaimed brightly, waving vigorously at Shepard, "Your coffee machine was broken, so I fixed it. And smelted like half the parts, but it still works! Did you know that if you distill energon the right way you get something that isn't poisonous? And that if you mix it with pure caffeine extracted from coffee mix anybody can drink it for the same effects? And that if you have fifteen cups in half that many hours you taste colors? I've gotten so much work done!" Shepard was pretty sure Tali's eyes hadn't glowed that brightly yesterday. Or that blue. Actually, Wrex was totally right. That was really, really unsettling.

"Uh, Tali? Why didn't you talk to the quartermaster or engineer Addams? They can give you access to the engineering stores, and you won't have to... Whatever it is you're doing," Shepard offered, "Because none of us have any idea. Aside from the very, very obvious."

"I'm fixing things!" Tali explained brightly, skipping back to her smelter and pouring more metal into a mold, "Normandy thruster fuel efficiency is up fifteen percent, and guess what? Turns out you didn't need half those big doohickeys in the engine room! How cool is that? I took the fifteen percent of the fuel on board I saved us, but it wasn't enough for the drone and the coffee, so I figured I might as well see if I could improve the Mako too and get some fuel from that. Which I did; you can thank me later." The Quarian examined a row of bolts lying on the ground, and rapidly dipped each one in her coffee mug, rendering them shiny and bright. "Did you know that properly formulated coffee can strip corrosion from Prothean metals in point three seconds?"

Graced with a sudden premonition of doom, Shepard lunged forward, but not fast enough as Tali slotted a straw into her helmet and drained the mug. The mug she'd just de-rusted bolts with. "Whoo!" the Quarian exclaimed, eyes glowing even brighter, "I can't believe I never tried this stuff before. Everything's so, so blue!"

"Crap. I think you've had enough. Five hours ago," Shepard groaned, gently attempting to steer Tali toward the lift, "I think Dr. Chakwas needs to take a look at you, and then you need to get some rest. Did you even sleep after the mission?"

Tali responded with blank noncomprehension. "Sleep? I swear I've heard that somewhere before, but I can't quite... No, I can't leave now! I'm almost done!". With a surprising burst of strength, she tore herself from Shepard's grasp and made a break for her workspace, and when did Tali get so fast?

The engineer grabbed a smooth, metal plate from a plastic bin where the part had been immersed in energon, and a heavy sledge hammer. As Tali whirled around, she managed to brain Shepard with the heavy end of the tool, knocking the human to the ground and evading capture yet again. Still free, Tali dashed up to the drone, removed the line connecting it to the Mako with a vigorous pull, and carefully positioned the retrieved plate over the opening with a series of twitchy movements.

She then raised the hammer over her head and slammed it down on the drone's chest, hammering the fresh plate into place. Ducking under another grab from Shepard, Tali recovered her siphoning line and thrust it into the drone's forehead. "Live again, daughter of Primus!" the Quarian screamed as the energon feed slid home, "Keelah Se'lai!" This done, Tali staggered back to hang limply from Commander Shepard's arms, the manic energy animating her abruptly gone.

"Oh, what happened?" the Quarian moaned, pressing her hands to the sides of her helmet, "Why did I just say that? I feel terrible. What just... Keelah, what did I just drink?!"

"You think of this now?" Shepard questioned incredulously, resisting the urge to facepalm only because the human's arms were the only things keeping Tali vertical. "What about before you drank that?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" Tali offered with a a weak chuckle, "I honestly don't... Have any... Idea... Oh, Keelah!" Shepard would have responded, but she was just as shocked. The drone had slowly and steadily regained color as Tali worked, but no longer.

Instead, deep blue and pitch black spread across the synthetic's form, pink highlights coloring the sides of its face, a stripe around each shin, and a few joints. Two beveled, metal circles jumped from one of Tali's workbenches and flew across the room on magnetic wings, each one slotting in place just below one of the drone's knees with a metallic click. While the organic audience was frozen with shock, a line of lasers swept across the room, like an insubstantial, white net, lingering on each organic, the Mako, and the Normandy's engine room. Then, the drone began to shift.

The synthetic's metal skin moved, taking internal components with it, reshaping the being's body from something spindly and essentially androgynous to a body shape precisely between Ashley's tall, heavier build, Shepard's stocky body, and Liara's slender, unconsciously graceful form (as Liara, comparing herself to other Asari, would never describe herself as graceful). Then, the drone twitched, a slight movement of one hand that drew everyone's attention, almost distracting them from seeing when the synthetic's glowing, blue optical sensors slid open.

With a screech of metal-on-metal, the drone levered itself into a seated position, sliding backward so that the wall of the cargo hold would support its back. The energon line, now unneeded, fell away with a soft clack. The drone blinked a few times, optics rotating as they attempted to adjust after millennia of disuse.

"Ugh. I feel like I swallowed the entire sea of rust. What's the damage, doc?" the drone groaned in a faintly musical alto, it's Keelish accented with a warm, metallic reverberation but still translatable by the organics' omnitools. "I've still got all my limbs, right Rachet? How long was I in stasis, anyway... Doc... Why is my universal translator active? Don't we all speak... Cybertronian..." It's, no, her optical sensors had finally focused, allowing the construct a clear view of exactly who and what was surrounding her. "Oh, Primus..."

Liara found her voice first, "AAAHHHH! A.I.! It's going to kill us all!"

The synthetic's optics irised as wide as the could go as she tried to scoot farther from the Normandy crew, slamming against the bulkhead. "AAAAAHHHHH! Organics! They're everywhere! Gross!"

* * *

 **Codex**

 **Engine Water**

The engineers tend to be the most well-educated enlisted men on any given Alliance starship. As such, they have the well-earned but frequently undeserved reputation for being the most likely of anyone on a ship to run a still hidden from the officers. The resultant moonshine is referred to as engine water, a reference to the early days of human space travel when primitive hydrogen fuel cells produced a ship's drinking water and electricity.

 **Autobots**

Many of the Prothean drones found have been marked with a distinctive symbol, a red, mechanical face with a stern expression and tear tracks down either cheek. Recovered data fragments from Prothean computers identify this as the symbol of a type of drone roughly translated as 'Autobot', consisting mostly of drones with little to no military weapons, armor, or other martial hardware installed. However, not all Autobots follow this pattern, and many that were deactivated more recently show evidence of weapons and armor installed in place of the drone's original, more peaceful systems. Most Prothean historians agree that the status of Autobot designates a privately owned, civilian drone, rather than a specific set of roles. That more recently destroyed Autobots are more likely to be armed suggests that the Protheans were involved in a war or series of wars prior to their extinction, lending credence to both the theory that the Protheans wiped themselves out in a massive civil war and the theory that some outside force attacked and destroyed the Prothean republic. These, as well as other, more obscure theories, are considered hot conversation topics among historians, but aside from the lucky few engineers who get to examine a relatively intact drone, the rest of the galaxy only cares that the Protheans are gone now, and left the mass relays and the citadel to their successors.

 **Decepticons**

Most drones without Autobot symbols have been found with a different insignia, a sharp, purple face with a crown-like structure on its head, the mark of the Decepticons. While Autobot drones are intended for civilian applications, whatever their later modifications, Decepticons are always built and equipped for war. These drones, even the ones modified from peaceful designs, come with heavy weapons, thick armor, more powerful motors, and often flight capability. Most historians agree that Decepticon drones were used as the backbone of the Prothean military, a theory borne out as unlike the Autobots, every single Decepticon recovered to date was taken off line by violent damage, from Prothean energon cannons, drone-sized melee weapons, or an unidentified cutting device. Decepticon remains are highly coveted by every galactic government, as they contain advanced weapons and exotic alloys to reverse-engineer. Autobot remains are less valuable, as their less advanced weapons are little better than what most races already have and only the Salarian, Volus, and Hanar governments currently invest a great deal in the civilian sector. The Turian hierarchy is a fascist military dictatorship, the Asari believe themselves close to societal perfection already, humanity and the Batarians are too busy with their cold war, and the Krogan have no united government to speak of. However, they did research Autobot-derived technologies before the rebellions in hopes of making their inhospitable home world Tuchanka more survivable for their young. Like most intelligent races with a high birth rate, the Krogan would have preferred to have fewer births overall and a greater certainty that each child would survive to adulthood. Now that their birth rate is glacial at best, each Krogan child and fertile female is a precious resource, albeit one often squandered by the dispersed species.

* * *

 **A.N. Meet Arcee. In my opinion, one of the coolest moments in any Transformers movie or show is the moment when the first Cybertronian makes an appearance, not the least because it's usually followed by the first transformation sequence. It's not as easy to capture the sheer visual awesome inherent in these scenes with the written word, but I at least feel like I did a good job with it. As for Arcee, she mostly resembles her appearance in Transformers Prime, aside from the slightly different paint job described and the magnetic wheels at her knees. Personally, I think that Transformers Prime is, visually at least, the best of the various media out there. You're welcome to your own opinion, but I like the Prime look. Most characters here will be somewhere between their Transformers Prime appearance and how they looked in Fall of Cybertron, my other main source of Transformers canon. Optimus, I imagined as pretty close to his Prime appearance as well. But the other transformers characters that will appear, in my imagination anyway, are closer to how they looked in the game. Funny how that works. However, since Arcee wasn't in that game, her looks come mostly from the TV show.**

 **Yeah, the stuff Tali is cleaning bolts with? She drank sixteen cups of that, mixed with whatever she happened to dip in it after the first six started messing with her judgement. While being subconsciously fed information by the Matrix of Leadership. Arcee is lucky she didn't wake up with three arms and a pink tie-dye color scheme. And Tali is really lucky that Primus is kept her from poisoning herself. But yes, ingesting chemicals extracted from energon and other Cyertronian substances is going to have consequences. Just not yet.**


End file.
